


it was never about you

by awakeanddreaming



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Scotland, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 13:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awakeanddreaming/pseuds/awakeanddreaming
Summary: There had been a fleeting moment—a wordless conversation—between her boyfriend and his partner and she knew, from that moment on, everything was about to be turned on its head.





	it was never about you

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. 
> 
> I haven’t had much of a chance to work on my Vegas AU—an update is in the works I promise—but I thought I would finish up an older project and share it with you all. I started this back in June and it’s been sitting on my computer since. 
> 
> Please enjoy some Scotland angst, from Klawes POV.

 

The castle halls are dim and the sound of the storm outside echoing off the walls makes her feel like she is inside of a rain stick. Her kitten heels clack against the cold stone floor as she walks slowly—examining portraits on the wall—not sure what she should be doing or if she should even be here.

She feels like she is sneaking through the halls, about to get caught—like a child out of bed at night. It reminds her of a comment Tessa had made a few nights earlier, _I feel like I'm in a Harry Potter book, this whole place is so surreal_. She laughs to herself because of course she sees it now. She was never really a Harry Potter fan, but she grew up in that generation, so she read most of the books, she saw the movies, and she feels it now.

She knows should just leave well enough alone. She should just wait for him to come find her. But she is propelled by a feeling. One that she can’t fully explain, that started off like a small, warm tingling under her sternum and spread through her chest. It’s as if she knows, somehow, that something has shifted.

There had been a fleeting moment—a wordless conversation—between her boyfriend and his partner and she knew, from that moment, everything was about to be turned on its head.

She isn’t stupid, naïve and a bit enamoured maybe. But not stupid. She’s seen the looks, knows about the constant need for physical contact, knows of the silent communication and their unique relationship. But she believed them when they swore up, down and sideways that they were friends and nothing more—never anything more. They had been so adamant about that (in hindsight maybe too adamant). She believed him when he told her he loved her—he was if nothing else a dedicated boyfriend.

Things had been going so well here, really better than she could have ever expected. They were getting along great, her and Tessa—actually having fun together. Far better than everyone warned her it could be. Though that could just be Tessa, who is forever even keeled and diplomatic and expert at hiding her emotions. But she chooses not to believe that because Tessa has seemed so genuine, this whole trip at least. Genuinely happy for them, and that was really all she could ask her for.

It all seemed to come crashing down that afternoon. Which had made no sense to her. They had a great time out exploring Scotland. Hiking, socializing, taking a dip in the frigid sea. Everything was all smiles, and laughter, until suddenly it wasn’t. Scott has been broody, sitting solemnly by the fire while they swam, and she had wrapped her arms around him, smoothed his hair, and he’d kissed her, pulling her tightly into the warmth of his body. Tessa sat shivering across the fire from them. She didn’t say much, after.  
  
As soon as they got back to the Castle, Tessa had looked over at her and Scott and her smile faltered—just for a moment—like something had cracked it. It was brief but long enough for her to perceive the difference. Definitely long enough for Scott to. He looked at her like he was trying to read her, to figure her out. As if she were a book in a foreign language and his eyes begged her to give him the lexicon.

Tessa heaved in a sigh and the smile was back, but if you looked closely into her eyes, she looked like someone struggling to breathe. Drowning and using a smile as a life raft.

She was about to ask what was wrong, but Scott got there first—of course.

He reached to grab her hand but she withdrew from his reach so quickly—like his touch might burn her. And shook her head almost imperceptibly— _telling him not here, not now._

“T?” He said softly, in a voice she’d never heard before. “You okay?”

Another barely there head shake, a movement so minute she wouldn’t have caught it had she not been looking. Had she not, on some level, been expecting something like this to happen— eventually. It was a message just for him— _no I am not alright_.

But then Tessa smiled at them both, “I just have a headache. I’m going to go rest for a bit.”

She would have believed her, truly— her tone was even, she looked directly at them—had it not been for the look that crossed her boyfriend’s face. A look not unlike Tessa’s of moments before. It was a look of poorly restrained pain, he was drowning too. Feeling her emotions as she felt them.

It was the first time Kaitlyn had really truly seen the connection between them that everyone always talked about. They were tethered together by some invisible length of thread. One that had stretched out so impossibly thin over the course of the last year that if the kept going, kept pulling away it was going to break. Or they could let go and snap back into each other like letting go of the ends of an elastic band.

She hears him before she sees him, right as she is rounding another corner. She can hear his muffled sobs, and ragged breathing. She is still in the shadows, so he can’t see her—not yet. But she looks up and there he is. Crumpled. Defeated. In front of her door.

She feels it, like a punch to her chest— the air is knocked entirely from her lungs. The dull prickling warmth from earlier combusting into a searing heat spreads quickly, like wildfire, from behind her sternum. She works to steady her breathing.

He is on his knees, with his forehead pressed against the dark stained wood. His breathing is coming in short bursts, and she is just close enough to make out the glistening of tears on his cheeks. He knocks, three times, on the door with the side of his fist. Weakly—like he has been here for a while. Then he presses his hand to the door, next to his head.

She can just make out his soft and desperate, “Please. Please, Tess, just open the door.”

Nothing happens.

He says it again, his voice hoarse.

She has never seen him this broken, or vulnerable. She wants to go to him, to wrap an arm around him, to tell him that whatever is broken can be fix. But she can’t move her feet, they are as heavy as the stone upon which she stands. She can’t breathe, her chest hurts, and she feels dizzy. She kind of hopes the door will open—wants to see Tessa on the other side. But it stays shut.

She has no idea how long he has been here, what happened before, or how long he will stay. But it hurts to watch, and she feels like she shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have come to find him.

She is about to turn to leave when his voice, low, pleading and wavering with emotion carries down the hall one more time.

“Tessa, I love you and I’m sorry.”

He turns his head so his ear is pressed to the door, and his hand that had been tapping on the wood stills, his fingers, slowly, spread out over the wood grains.

And again. “I love you.”

Her heart catches in her throat. She really shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have heard that. She is shaking, but rooted in place.

 _It isn’t about me_ , she thinks. _It’s about them._ They’ve been so closely wrapped around each other since they were children, best friends for most of their lives. Of course he loves her. She knows that something happened to their friendship after Sochi, that the little chips and cracks that had formed in the year leading up to the games had become open fractures.

She knows this not because Scott has told her, he resolutely will not talk about it, but rather by what he won’t say. In the tiptoeing around the topic of Tessa, when it doesn’t involve skating. In the way Alma will mention how much she misses seeing Tessa, or in the way she avoids saying it.

They still spend an inordinate amount of time together, their friendship is still far more tactile than she understands, they usually finish each other’s sentences. Or they used to.

The only time she gets the tiniest bit of information about his and Tessa’s relationship out of Scott is when he can’t finish her sentence. It was a few months ago and Tessa had said something, trailing off because she couldn’t think of the right word. She’d looked to Scott, expectantly and he’d just gaped at her—unable to think of the word she had been searching for. He looked like someone had knocked the air from his lungs. Later, after several drinks, he explained that that had been happening more and more lately, but it had never happened before. He had always known what she was going to say—even in their worst moments.

 _This isn’t about you_ , she tells herself as she slips out of her little black kitten heels and retreats down the stone hall—so that he won’t hear her. She says it all the way back to her own room. _This isn’t about you._ It’s about them, about their friendship. Something they need to sort out.

She repeats it like a mantra as she undresses and slips into bed. She keeps repeating it, even though her heart feels like it is on fire. even though her lungs feel like they are filling with the sharp sting of ice-cold water, not air.

It isn’t until she is in bed and the heat in her heart and the chill in her lungs have cancelled each other out, and she feels like she is breathing somewhat normally again that she realizes how right she is. This—whatever this is—isn’t about her. It has never been about her.

 _It was never about you, it’s always been about her. Tessa_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me in the twitter-verse @awakeanddreami1!


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